Thursday, February 28, 2013

Just in time to piss all over Black History Month, right-wing nutbag and unjust Justice Antonin Scalia has characterized the Voting Rights Act as a "perpetuation of racial entitlement". Of course, normal people know that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 sought protections from impediments to voting that resulted in the disenfranchisement of black voters througout much of the country. By characterizing the right to vote as a "racial entitlement", Scalia denigrates the legacy of martyrs to the cause of civil rights such as James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner. By characterizing the right to vote as an entitlement, Scalia denigrates the legacy of all of those who fought for the expansion of suffrage. Here is the text of Scalia's jaw-dropping statement:

Well, maybe it was making that judgment, Mr. Verrilli. But that’s — that’s a problem that I have. This Court doesn’t like to get involved in — in racial questions such as this one. It’s something that can be left — left to Congress.

The problem here, however, is suggested by the comment I made earlier, that the initial enactment of this legislation in a — in a time when the need for it was so much more abundantly clear was — in the Senate, there — it was double-digits against it. And that was only a 5-year term.

Then, it is reenacted 5 years later, again for a 5-year term. Double-digits against it in the Senate. Then it was reenacted for 7 years. Single digits against it. Then enacted for 25 years, 8 Senate votes against it. And this last enactment, not a single vote in the Senate against it. And the House is pretty much the same. Now, I don’t think that’s attributable to the fact that it is so much clearer now that we need this. I think it is attributable, very likely attributable, to a phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial entitlement. It’s been written about. Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes.

I don’t think there is anything to be gained by any Senator to vote against continuation of this act. And I am fairly confident it will be reenacted in perpetuity unless — unless a court can say it does not comport with the Constitution. You have to show, when you are treating different States differently, that there’s a good reason for it.

That’s the — that’s the concern that those of us who — who have some questions about this statute have. It’s — it’s a concern that this is not the kind of a question you can leave to Congress. There are certain districts in the House that are black districts by law just about now. And even the Virginia Senators, they have no interest in voting against this. The State government is not their government, and they are going to lose — they are going to lose votes if they do not reenact the Voting Rights Act.

Even the name of it is wonderful: The Voting Rights Act. Who is going to vote against that in the future?

The problem with straight white male male privilege is that it is invisible to its beneficiaries. Straight white males tend to think of themselves as the "default setting" for humanity. Because they are largely free from discrimination (it has to be noted that most attacks on white male privilege are conducted by white males from a higher socioeconomic stratum), straight white males often believe that members of minority groups are similarly unaffected by discrimination, which leads the straight white males to view any protections extended to minority groups as "perpetuation of racial entitlement".

A white, male middle class individual may look at Scalia's characterization of the Voting Rights Act and think, "What's the big deal?" After all, nobody's thinking of disenfranchising white male voters. Women know better- morethanoneconservative has verbally attacked women's suffrage. While straight white guys don't see any threats to their franchise, such threats are not inconceivable- after all, the current political climate is one in which proposed legislation could give corporations the right to vote, and the average white male clockpuncher would not fare too well if his corporate paymasters really had their way.

Of course, the real solution to the issue of voting rights would be to make voting a constitutional right, and to explicitly extend the right to all citizens over the age of eighteen, to expand the scope of the Voting Rights Act rather than to drop it.

Scalia being a corporatist (and arguably a fascist, just like his old man), it is not inconceivable that, not being content with attacking the franchise of minorities, Scalia would attack the franchise of the average white working class schmo. White guys, open your eyes and see that you enjoy a privilege that other groups do not. Failure to recognize this, and failure to defend the minorities you believe are getting "racial entitlements" could lead to you losing your current privileges. Those black people in Alabama aren't leeches sucking to lifeblood out of the Republic, they're canaries keeling over- ignore them at your peril!

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

I have been read­ing about the Brain Preser­va­tion Foun­da­tion (BPF), which hopes that chem­i­cal and other meth­ods, includ­ing a refined ver­sion of plas­ti­na­tion, will enable brains to be pre­served with such fidelity that mem­o­ries, per­son­al­ity, and even iden­tity can be preserved.

This may well seem rem­i­nis­cent of the older cryo­genic preser­va­tion projects which have not always had a good press over recent years, though they still con­tinue to oper­ate and indeed have refined their processes some­what. But although the BPF also has a vision of bring­ing peo­ple back to life after their nat­ural death, it is in many ways a dif­fer­ent ket­tle of fish. It does not itself offer any kind of ser­vice but merely seeks to pro­mote research, and it does not expect to see a prac­ti­cal sys­tem for many years

Traditionally, attempts to preserve brains have been portrayed as sinister plots to prolong the depredations of evil dictators both terrestrial:

Monday, February 25, 2013

Mystery solved... My co-worker **REDACTED** managed to intercept one of the visitors who have been showing up at our workplace at odd hours and had this individual explain in detail what she was doing. It turns out I was wrong about these folks engaging in a "geocaching" or "waymarking". Our visitors are actually playing a massively multiplayer computer game that actually takes place in the real world, an "Augmented Reality" game (I tend to augment my reality with booze, myself) called Ingress. The game seems to be analogous to a "capture the flag", or maybe "king of the hill", game with two teams of players taking position of a particular area called a "portal" in the game. Well, one of these "portals" happens to be in our goddamn parking lot. Oddly, the game participants that my co-workers have met have seemed to assume that my co-workers were familiar with the game terminology, and confused the hell out of them with their talk of portals. Generally speaking, it's good to eschew jargon when talking to the mundanes, people.

At any rate, the participants don't seem to be aware that our parking lot is private property. Speaking for myself, I generally consider nightfall to be the time when I tell people they need to vamoose. The site is open to the public for a certain time of the year, for a certain number of hours a day. During the daylight hours, I usually approach people on the premises and give them a quick introduction to the site, and to our operations. At night, I'm usually less indulgent- people get a curt, but not rude, "Can I help you?" People who need assistance get it, others get the hint. Suffice it to say, people pulling into the lot late at night are not exactly greeted with open arms. It's usually a "get a hotel room" or "don't even think of trying to cop here". Last Saturday, at about quarter to midnight, when I arrived for the graveyard shift, there was an "Ingress" guy in the lot. Quarter to midnight? Beat it, man! Shouldn't you be out drinking, or meeting a nice girl? Wouldn't that be better than having a large, fierce looking man bark at you in a cold, dark parking lot on a Saturday night?

Here's a trailer for the game:

Here's an example of the gameplay:

This thing being a worldwide, massively multiplayer competitive game, I can envision this situation potentially turning into a weird nerd "turf war", with various team members lying in wait to retake the "portal" in our parking lot from their adversaries. Needless to say, I wrote the oddest memo of my entire worklife to the head of my department, complete with links to show him that I'm not delusional. I think the next step is to contact the moderators and request that they move the "portal" off our property. We have a really cool, really distinctive, destined-to-be-iconic landmark across the street from us, on public property. This landmark would be a perfect "portal", and there's plenty of street parking to boot. My co-worker already sent a complaint to the "Ingress" website, shouting to the ether that participants were on private property at odd hours. He's been the poor fellow who's had the most contact with the players.

I'm a fairly nerdy guy, as any regular reader could ascertain, but, like Dr Kenneth Noisewater, I find certain aspects of "Nerd Culture" to be exasperating- among them an occasional obtuseness towards societal norms which, among other things, can lead one to set foot on private property at a quarter to midnight. I don't need my reality augmented, I'm really just here trying to earn a modest paycheck. The last time my reality was augmented, things weren't pretty. Don't take it personally, Ingress players, like Rebecca Watson explaining to d00dz that they shouldn't make passes at women in enclosed spaces at 4AM, I'm trying to help you avoid getting arrested, or maced, or both.

Sunday, February 24, 2013

I've had it with winter- last Friday morning, working during the wee hours, I was wearing five layers of clothes to cover my "core" during my outdoor forays, due to the cold and the fierce wind. Thankfully, the wind has died down and the cold has somewhat abated. More significantly, I heard the distinctive trill of the red-winged blackbird this morning. Forget the woodchuck, the boid is the true harbinger of spring throughout much of North America.

Also on the bird front, the geese are very vocal, with large migratory flocks honking overhead. We always have a resident population of geese around here, taking advantage of the stretches of open water, but the migratory population has eclipsed the stay-at-home bunch. Oddly enough, the wiki indicates that Canada geese have been introduced to New Zealand... can I get a confirmation from a reputable Antipodean, preferably a science talking guy (or gal)? We also have some visiting Ring Necked Ducks and mergansers both hooded and common, but they tend to leave us as the weather gets warmer. While the juncos are with us year-round, they tend to be the most common small birds to stay the winter. You can recognize them by the flash of white seen at the edges of their tails as they fly off, the shy little things.

I'm looking forward to spring, though I'd be lying if I said that winter doesn't have its pleasures. I have the privilege of spending a lot of time outdoors, so I can observe the seasonal changes. The avian "changing of the guard" is one of my favorite ways to gauge the succession of seasons. Of course, I'll now have to check out the part of the property where the snowdrops come in... so many old friends to welcome back!

The "money quote" in the story is his landlady's characterization of the Facebook felon: In the end, she called Mulqueen “ineffectual, sort of the legend in his own mind. This was all the Internet, you know.”

Thursday, February 21, 2013

My workplace parking lot is adjacent to a main county road, and people occasionally pull into it after hours for various purposes. Usually, they are checking maps or GPS systems, or answering phone calls or text messages, in the decent weather, we sometimes get "visitors" who are too cheap to get a hotel room for their amatory endeavors. Once in a while, someone with car trouble will pull into the lot. In the wee hours of the morning, the local constabulary often parks in the lot, which gives them a good vantage on the main road.

Typically, I will approach a "strange" car in order to ascertain the intents and purposes of the occupants- I always preface a conversation with, "May I help you?" I like to let people know that I am not immediately hostile to their presence, but I won't brook any nonsense. Should the occupant(s) actually need assistance, directions given, help with a flat tire, I can typically get them on their way in a few minutes. If I can't be arsed approaching a car, I will bust out a two million candlepower spotlight we have on hand, and will shine it across the parking lot into the car. This technique, which one of my co-workers is inordinately fond of, invariably convinces people to leave the premises. Typically, though, I like to know who is on the premises at any given time and, more importantly, get them off the premises in timely fashion. I cut some slack during the blizzard for a local guy who parked his car in our lot overnight because the side streets were a mess, and I generally get contact information for anyone who cannot move their car due to mechanical problems.

In the past two weeks, we've had a strange trend. I haven't personally experienced it (I've been working the graveyard shift lately), but two of my co-workers related a half-dozen incidents in which people have stopped in our parking lot after hours, sometimes as late as 11PM, and have wandered around the parking lot, checking out their smartphones. All of these individuals have been similar demographically... all well-spoken males of similar age and ethnic background. As it turns out, all of these gentlemen belong to a geocaching or waymarking (I'm not sure which) club which has chosen coordinates in our parking lot for their "scavenger hunt". They're a nice bunch of harmless eccentrics, but it would have been good of them to let us know to expect a slow but steady stream of visitors at odd hours. At the very least, it would relieve them of having a gruff, no-nonsense employee growling "We're closed!" at them.

For details on geocaching, this is the go-to site, for waymarking, go here. If you get involved in the hobby, I'll probably see you within a few months, just don't take it personally if I growl at you if you arrive after dark.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

I'm going to preface this post by stating emphatically that I like bistecca di cavallo as much as the next guy. That being said, knowing what I'm eating is important to me, so I've been following the European horse meat scandal pretty closely. It seems that one of the problems leading to the meat mixup is sourcing ground meat from multiple points of origin, as part of a Byzantine supply chain:

Some of the beef products sold in Britain went through five different suppliers in four countries before landing on supermarket shelves. The beef ingredient in just one frozen meal made by food giant Findus travelled through a processor in France, which bought it from a trader in Cyprus, who used a trader in the Netherlands who received it from two butchers in Romania.

In other cases meat from two slaughterhouses in Poland, where cattle and horses were slaughtered, followed a similar winding path through factories in France and Luxembourg and then on to grocery stores in Britain and Ireland. While the EU has strict rules about food labelling, enforcement is weak and penalties for mislabelling are considered light.

In many cases the food companies involved said they had no idea where the meat originated and most are now suing their suppliers who are suing their subcontractors.

This multi-mile meat meandering is a great argument for the locavore movement... it's always good to get to know the person who is handling your meat. At a minimum, I'd settle for accurate labeling of meat and meat by-products.

The conservatives fare better when people are left in the dark, especially when it comes to self-awareness. For them, it's far better to keep the brain a terra incognita, the purlieus of the monsters of the id.

Monday, February 18, 2013

Here in the United States, Presidents' Day falls on the third Monday in February. The holiday falls around George Washington's birthday (February 22), and Abraham Lincoln's Birthday (February 12), which was a holiday in New York State, but not countrywide (the South doesn't have a high regard for Lincoln).

In honor of the two presidents originally honored on Presidents' Day, here are a couple of short documentaries which cover some little known facts about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, respectively. Here's the Washington doc:

Sunday, February 17, 2013

I'm stuck at work, so I will be missing out on the record release party for Secret Science Club Goddess and Friend of the Bastard Dorian Devins' new CD, The Procrastinator. The party will be in the re-opened, relocated Tagine Moroccan restaurant (now located at 221 West 38th St, between 7th & 8th Aves). If you are in the NY metro area, please go and show some adulation and adoration for the brilliant, smashing Ms Devins. Here and here are reviews of Dorian's album. More importantly, here is the title track of the album for your musical enjoyment:

Again, if you're in the NYC metro area and you're not stuck at work, head down to Tagine and enjoy some delectable Moroccan cuisine and be entertained by someone I consider to be a colossus in both the musical and intellectual circles of the city.

If you wish to hear Dorian as critic as well as Dorian as artist, here's Dorian discussing John Coltrane's career with NY Times jazz critic Ben Ratliff:

Of course, I can't finish this post without getting in a political dig. I'm willing to pay extra taxes for a government project which could save the human species from potential extinction, and most people would agree with me unless they're Austrian school libertarians.

Friday, February 15, 2013

Holy crap, this is my one thousandth post. One... thousand... posts! It's funny, when I started blogging back in December of 2009, I never really thought ahead to a time when I would have posted one thousand blog entries. Once again, I want to thank everybody who reads my blog- you are the reason I keep doing this, the reason why it's so much fun. I especially want to thank the regular commentariat, you are the nicest, funniest people on the internet, and you have brought me much entertainment and camaraderie over the years. Words are not exactly adequate to express my gratitude, folks.

One thing that I seriously have to contemplate as I continue this blogging endeavor is labeling my posts. I haven't labeled a single post in all the years that I have been writing this blog. One benefit of labeling my posts would be going back over old blog entries, seeing what I was concerned with at a particular moment in time, and editing any typos or grammatical lapses (I would not change the substance of any posts in any way).

The internet is an amazing thing... it's basically a cognitive map, the various links and browser entries form a pathway that can be followed to determine one's mental state at a particular moment in history, and to assemble a more cohesive map of one's personality. I'm seriously thinking about going back and tracing out this pathway, but the task seems a bit daunting.

Anyway, thanks for reading this blog and sharing your comments. Your time is precious, and I'm flattered that you're spending some of it perusing my little essays and scribblings.

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Since this is the solemn feast of St Valentine, I figure I'd quickly post a couple of romantic songs before scarpering off to have some fun on my day off. It's a gorgeous day, sunny and about 45 degrees Fahrenheit (about 7 Celsius), so I'm going to take advantage of the weather.

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Last night, I headed down to the beautiful Bell House in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn for this month's Secret Science Club lecture by Dr. Martin Blaser, director of NYU’s Human Microbiome Program. Dr Blaser's title for the lecture was: "While Babies Sleep and Dream, their Microbiome Never Rests"- a very sweet, poetic title.

After a brief overview of the topics he would cover, Dr Blaser opened his lecture with a slide of the changes in the Greenland ice sheets due to global warming. Just as global warming is a change in the macroenvironment, there are changes occurring in the microenvironment inside our bodies.

The lecture then proceeded to the topic of the three "Kingdoms" of life, the Bacteria, the Archaea, and the Eukarya. To put our place in the scheme of things into perspective, Dr Blaser showed a slide of the "Tree of Life" and informed us that, in comparison to the distantly related bacteria Escherichia coli and Clostridium sp., humans can count as close relatives corn and fungi.

The microbiome is ancient, niche-specific, persistent, conserved, and host specific. Ever since animals evolved, they have had microbial symbionts. In a typical human body, there are 23,000 "human" genes present, and 8 million microbial genes. Put bluntly, 99% of the genes present in your body are bacterial. Different sites around the human body have different microbial populations. The diversity of an individual's microbiomes levels out with age, with the "adult" microbiome typically being established by the age of three. The host and the symbiotic microbes co-evolve- host and symbiont send "signals" to each other.

H. pylori has been implicated in gastric cancer as well as stomach and duodenal ulcers. Men with H. pylori are more likely to develop stomach cancer than men without H. pylori. As H. pylori disappears, the incidence of gastric cancer has decreased. There's a downside, though- as H. pylori disappears, the incidence of gastric "reflux" and esophageal adenocarcinoma has increased. Reflux, which makes esophageal cancer more prevalent, was rare in the 1930s, but the incidence has been increasing with the wane of H. pylori. H. pylori is bad for the stomach, but good for the esophagus. As Dr Blaser bluntly put it, you can't win.

The next topic of the lecture involved other health effects of H. pylori. The stomach produces the hormone ghrelin, which stimulates appetite. H. pylori affects ghrelin levels. Ghrelin levels are typically high in the morning, which triggers hunger, and decrease as one is satiated. If H. pylori is eradicated, ghrelin levels tend to remain high. The elimination of H. pylori has also been implicated in increased asthma rates and may play a role in the increased incidence of food allergies. In children under fifteen, there is an inverse association between asthma and the presence of H. pylori, but there is no such association in children over the age of fifteen. Asthma rates tend to rise with courses of antibiotics administered to infants- early H. pylori infection could possibly prevent asthma. Wheezing is caused by metacholine. H. pylori makes wheezing less prevalent in infants. the bacteria in the stomach protect the lungs. H. pylori can also cause increased skin sensitization. The disappearance of H. pylori may be related to T-cell depletion and increased gastric acidity. H. pylori is good for the upper regions of the gastrointestinal tract and bad for the lower reaches of the GI tract. It's good for us early in life, but bad for us later in life. Once again, you can't win.

The next topic of the lecture was an overview of the disappearing microbiota hypothesis. A changing human ecology since the 19th century has affected the transmission and maintenance of the indigenous microbiota, and the microorganismal composition changes have an effect on health. Since the 19th century, each generation of mothers has passed fewer microbes to its children. In a cross-cultural study, the diversity of microbiota in the U.S. has been found to be lower than that in the Malawian and South American indigenous populations.

One major factor in the transmission of microbiota is the method of birth. Mothers pass their microbiota to their children through the birthing process (vaginal birth transfers a more diverse microbiota than birth by Caesarian section), through the mastication of food for their infants, through nursing, and through skin contact.

The "antimicrobials" discussion turned to the use of antibiotics. Out of the top eight prescriptions given to children, five are for antibiotics. 41 million courses of antibiotics are administered to children yearly. This may be a factor in the rise of obesity throughout the developing world for the last thirty years. The administration of low doses of antibiotics (STAT: sub-therapeutic antibiotic treatment) promotes growth in farm animals. The earlier the antibiotics are applied, the greater the increase in growth. Studies involving mice showed no difference in weight between mice given "STAT", but the mice given antibiotics had a greater fat mass. Not only does STAT create a greater fat mass, but it also changes the host's microbiota. The microbiota change precedes the development of obesity. Liver adiposity also increases with STAT. STAT also affects lipid metabolic processes and fatty acid metabolism. The antibiotics change the composition of microbiota through Natural Selection (microbes not killed by the antibiotics proliferate when "weaker" microbes die off) The application of antibiotics also decreases the activation of the immune system's T-cells, and changes genes which regulate obesity in early life.

Besides STAT, sub-therapeutic antibiotic treatment, studies were made of PAT, pulse antibiotic therapy, the administration of antibiotics as if an infection were being treated. In these studies, it was found that three "pulses" of antibiotics were sufficient to accelerate weight gain and resulted in bigger bones with a higher mineral content. It's possible that PAT could be resulting in increases in average height.

The administration of antibiotics reduces the diversity of microbiota- with each "pulse" there is a permanent reduction in microbiota species. If an ecosystem is perturbed once, it can recover, additional perturbations cause permanent change. Perturbed equilibrium changes all "pathways" in an ecosystem. This has an implication in the development of stem cells because microbiota create a context for development. By perturbing microbiota, we could be changing metabolic, cognitive, and developmental processes. A changing microbiota also has allergic and autimmune implications- a rise in allergies and autoimmune disorders could be "collateral damage" resulting from changing microbiota.

In the Q&A session, some bastard in the audience asked Dr Blaser if the various "probiotics" on the market were of any value. He indicated that most of the probiotics on the shelf were more triumphs of marketing rather than paragons of therapeutic value. He also asserted that more narrow spectrum antibiotics were needed to prevent large scale disruptions of microbiota. In a response to a question about Fecal Transplant Therapy, he indicated that the clinical trial showed that fecal transplants are useful in treating persistent Clostridium difficile infections. As an aside, I think I could become a regular POOP donor... I'm full of the stuff! Diet can change the microbiome somewhat, but the fundamental (heh heh) "fingerprint" of the microbiome doesn't change much.

Once again, this was a top-notch lecture in a top-flight series. It was also an appropriate lecture for the Valentine's Day season, because it was a celebration of the fact that no-one is alone, ever. So... love the little buddies who travel with you wherever you go. Special thanks to Dr Blaser, Secret Science Goddesses Dorian Devins and Margaret Mittelbach, and the staff of the beautiful Bell House. They are even better than my beloved gut-buddies, and I never have to worry about them giving me ulcers.

POSTSCRIPT: Me being me, I couldn't finish this post without putting up the video for Germfree Adolescents by the late great Poly Styrene and the X-Ray Spex:

Here's a version by Davell Crawford, grandson of "Sugar Boy", and famed New Orleans musician Dr John:

Finally, here's the now-inescapable version by the Belle Stars. I'm tickled pink by the idea that the lead singer, a nice English girl, is celebrating her African roots by singing a Creole song from New Orleans:

Alright, here's wishing tout le monde a happy Mardi Gras. Laissez les bons temps rouler! I made a big pot of red beans and rice yesterday, but I'm going to be headed down to Brooklyn for the monthly lecture rather than whoopin' it up Nawlins style.

Here's a short documentary, albeit one from an outsider's perspective, about the Mardi Gras Indians:

Monday, February 11, 2013

Wow! This just in, Pope Benedict will be stepping down at the end of the month. It's somewhat appropriate the Pope choose the day before Mardi Gras to step down, because he is, as I wrote two years ago, one of those insufferable "All Ash Wednesday, No Fat Tuesday" Catholics, much like professional scolds Ross Douthat and Kathryn Jean Lopez.

So, who to elect pope? Personally, I think the Roman Catholic Church should elevate one of the cardinals of Brazil to the Papacy. Brazil is the world's most populous Roman Catholic country, and has a diverse and forward-thinking population. The past thirty years has seen the Roman Catholic Church take a hard rightward lurch as a mini "Counter Reformation" in response to the changes ushered in by the Second Vatican Council. As Thunder put it in the comments on that long-ago post, the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America has maintained a tradition of actually helping the poor. Tellingly, Benedict, while still Cardinal Ratzinger, condemned Liberation Theology. Perhaps a Brazilian pope would bring a more progressive vision to the Holy See. Mainly, I think nominating a Brazilian pope would be a great idea so we could have a pope who appears on the Vatican balcony in a Speedo. Isn't about time we had a sexy pope again?

Saturday, February 9, 2013

I'm almost embarassed at how easy my day has been, especially in light of conditions not far from here. In the City of Y______, snow totals were around six inches or so (approx. 15 centimeters), which is not unmanageable. I made a point of parking near a sewer grate, and spent a bit of time around 3AM shoveling snow around my car into the sewer (you'll drive no more, my lickle snowflakes!), and cleaning off my car. I was near an intersection, so I could back out of my parking spot onto the secondary road along which I dwell, just in case the plows didn't make it to the tertiary roadway on which I habitually park. I set the alarm for 7:30 AM, so I could check in on my co-worker who would be nearing the end of his sixteen-hour blizzard ordeal.

Having awoken, and discovering that the snow had ceased to fall, I threw on some sweats and commenced the shoveling out process. I shoveled the sidewalk in front of the house, and cleaned off the entranceway to the upstairs tenants' apartments. Then I proceeded to shovel the sidewalk in front of the neighbors' house (these neighbors are a woman who retired last year and her mother, can't leave them in the lurch when there's a blizzard), and the tenants who live directly above me, immigrants from Monaghan came out and shoveled the neighbor's front stoop. The neighbor across the street, a really nice guy from the Philippines, came out to fire up the old snowblower at about the same time, and we joked about how we always seem to end up removing snow at the same time. Funny, every winter I feel a year older...

I then took some more time to clean up the street around my car (it was still snowing when I was out around 3AM, and the streets hadn't been plowed), then called it a wrap so I could nap for a few hours before getting ready for work. Just listening to the weather reports, I was dreading the drive to work, so I gave myself twice the ordinary time for the commute. By the time I left the house, the sun was shining brightly on a winter postcard scene, a lot of the snow on the plowed secondary roads had melted, and the main roads were perfectly clean and clear.

The roads were so beautiful, and the traffic so light, that I actually got to work in less time than it usually takes. I was one lucky bastard today.

I'm currently at work, and I was scheduled to come back at midnight, but my co-worker and agreed to swap shifts so he'll be working a sixteen hour overnight ordeal during the blizzard, and I'll be working a sixteen hour endurance tour in the aftermath (if the car is totally buried with no possibility of extraction, I'll plan on taking public transportation- I'm keeping my fingers crossed here). I'm going to run around now that the sun is up and "batten down the hatches" as much as I can.

Before my current shift, I stopped at the supermarket to buy some yogurt and a box of cereal for "lunch". EVERY SINGLE CONTAINER OF MILK IN THE STORE HAD BEEN SOLD. EVERY... SINGLE... ONE... Luckily, I still had milk in the fridge at work, but I have to asky, why milk? Why, of all things, does milk sell out? I'm not much of a milk drinker- I just use it in my coffee, and occasionally put it on cereal (I'm a weirdo, I eat a lot of oats, but I almost never make oatmeal, and I mix commercial cereal with rolled oats and eat it with yogurt... I guess it's the Swiss part of my heritage, I'm a dedicated Müesli man). I made it a point to fill the gas tank of my car. It'll probably be a rough weekend, but my poor co-worker will be the one taking on the chin while I lounge around the house with a Dutch oven full of some simmering slumgullion keeps the place warm (I'm thinking navy beans simmered with a hambone, perhaps). We divide the lumps pretty equitably, so I'm not having pangs of guilt. We all get our asses kicked some time or other.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

This article about taxpayer-funded public wifi networks touches upon a topic I've been discussing with yawning acquaintances for years. Namely, the fact that certain industries should made public, because they form the underpinnings of the economy. Power, water, and transportation industries allow other industries to function- without them, the economy goes belly up. I think that these utilities are too important to be for-profit, there are plenty of profits to be made in other endeavors which are made possible by the regular, regulated delivery of services. In my tirades and exhortations, I'd often refer to these factors as "metaeconomic", but that term has a previously accepted meaning.

By making cheap public wifi available, small businesses would be able to compete more readily, schools and libraries would be able to reduce the expenses associated with textbooks and class materials. Even though the telecom corporations that are currently providing internet service would suffer a loss of profits (though they could be forced by competition to innovate to increase data transmission speeds and to otherwise improve services), other sectors of the economy would benefit. Similarly, public health coverage would remove a significant barrier to the creation small businesses and entrepeneurs, namely the prohibitive cost of health insurance (my workplace had their yearly enrollment meeting today).

Of course, I don't think that the introduction of public wifi will be implemented. As I opined above, cheap, taxpayer funded wifi would force the current telecom providers to improve their services, and it's a lot easier to pay lobbyists to crush competition. Here in the U.S., we just can't have nice things, it seems.

Just a quick, slightly goofy post hastily put up because I'm in a lazy mood...

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

I have long toyed with writing this post, which (now I'm going to make my readers jealous) encapsulates a snippet of conversation I had in person with Canadian uberhunk Substance McGravitas and nerdlicious brainiac N__B. The deciding factor in the timing of this post was the discovery of the probable remains of Richard the Third, a man depicted in historical and dramatic accounts as an evil usurper, guilty of simultaneous infanticide and regicide, though this depiction may very well be a gross exaggeration. This post is not going to be a defense of Richard 3-D, but a defense of another man whose character was destroyed by Slick Willy Shakespeare... a man whose wife was also defamed by Stratford-on-Avon's greatest monster.

So, why would shady Shakespeare go out of his way to destroy the character of MacBeth, who ruled wisely over a prosperous land? It would seem that Bill was trying to gain the favor of King James the First, whose Stuart dynasty traced its roots to a shadowy figure named Fleance. As an aside, if I ever form a Belle and Sebastian-y dreampop band, I will name it Fly Fleance Fly. So... Shakespeare was trying to suck up to a bad king by maligning a good one. Real jerk move there, Shakespeare!

And Lady Macbeth? She was no red-handed murdress, merely a- heh heh- grouch.

I really dig that version, because it reminds me of the hilarious lounge-y cover of Iron Man by The Cardigans, who were fronted by the brain-burstingly beautiful Nina Persson:

What my readers my not know is that I am a big Henry Mancini fan (A Shot in the Dark is a personal favorite). Imagine my delight when I found a video of the pulchritudinous Srta Maestro singing Moon River:

Oddly enough, in the 1970's, Grand Central was in danger of being demolished, a fate which befell the storied Penn Station. One would have thought that the destruction of Penn Station and its replacement by the soulless Madison Square Garden and a grotty subterranean railroad hub(Vincent Scully lamented, "One entered the city like a God. Now one scuttles in like a rat.") would have forestalled any talk of demolishing such a beautiful building, but one cannot underestimate the venality of developers. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed, and the, uh, grand railroad terminal still stands, as glorious as it ever was.

If you haven't visited Grand Central Terminal, you owe it to yourself to check it out. Even though the majority of the people passing through are in a hurry, there's still a romantic (in the classic definition of the term) feel to the place. These people may be hurrying off to grinding days on the job, but they are dashing sophisticates while in this glorious, shining setting. Also, the central clock of the terminal is one of New York City's best places to arrange to meet someone- that's where I met my awesome cousin Val before we headed down to Brooklyn. Come to think of it, I spent quite a bit of time in GCT in December of last year- that's also where I bid adieu to Major Kong. Of course, you should check out the Major's fascinating DKos diaries, you'll learn about things you didn't even know you didn't know about. Now, I know that Ned is on hiatus, but I imagine he'll put up a post about Grand Central, it being a spectacular old building of the sort he adores (whether or not he adores GCT itself...).

Biodiversity Revolution is headed by the Sadly No semi-regular "Just Alison", who also used the anagram "Snail Joust". I love the topic of Alison's blog and, importantly, it's the first Australian blog on my blogroll. Someday, I'd love to hang out in Ozzystoryalelyya with Ms. Alison, drinking lime spiders while listening to the Lime Spiders.

Vixen Strangely, who also blogs at Rumproast, is proprietress of Vixen Strangely Makes Uncommon Sense. Her byline used to be "A Small and Slackerish Political Blog" until some bastard called her on the "slackerish" part of the byline, which is now "A Small but Otherwise on Fire Political Blog". Now, it's time to work on the "small" part of her byline- seriously, check her blog out, her Climate Sunday posts make for some fine reading.

For No Odd Reason, bbkf's place, is also a sweet blog- a nice mix of domestic tales and political musings. I'd love to hear more takedowns of the editor of the local right-wing rag, as well- she does some hilarious trips to the "woodshed" with that dumbass in Sadly No comment threads.

The fifth entry is actually our old friend Vacuumslayer/Dr Kenneth Noisewater who decided to discontinue her long-form blog while starting the tumblr blogs General Armchair and 60 Percent Success Rate- first, she became a nut, now she became a hip young go-getter with her hot new social media platform. I'll update the blogroll to get her up-to-date material on the front page, I promise.

So... that's my blogroll update. I enjoy all of the blogs I've linked to, and exhort you to visit them regularly. In addition, I also exhort anybody reading this who isn't blogging to start a blog. It's a lot of fun, and the camaraderie is awesome. There's plenty of additional room on the blogroll, folks.

About Me

The Big Bad Bald Bastard is a character played by Monsieur _______ of the City of Y______. The role of the Bastard is a handy one to play on subways, walking the streets, and in dive-bars, when being a nerdy, bookish sort is not to one's advantage.